Monday, August 13, 2018

The 'circuitous and chaotic' path to Nebraska's upcoming execution

Nebraska intends to carry-out an execution tomorrow morning. It will be the first execution in Nebraska in more than 20 years.

The recent history of the death penalty in Nebraska has been
circuitous and chaotic, reflecting the deep divisions over the punishment that
mark the U.S. as a whole. reported The Marshall Project.

Though many have been sentenced to death in the state, only
three people have been executed there since the 1950s, all in an electric
chair. In 2008, the state supreme court declared electrocutions to be “cruel
and unusual punishment.” Nebraska’s legislature responded by changing the
method to lethal injection, making it the last state in the U.S. to adopt this
method.

But nobody was executed, and then in May 2015 the
legislature voted to repeal the death penalty altogether. It surprised many to
see a largely conservative state make this move, but many Republican
legislators said they were swayed by
the punishment’s high financial cost. Governor Pete Ricketts did not agree, and
he vetoed the repeal. The legislature managed to override his veto, but only by
a single vote.

Anti-death penalty activists celebrated, but the story still
wasn’t over. Grassroots
pro-capital punishment activists campaign began to collect signatures —
at car insurance agencies, farm equipment dealers, and other storefronts — for
a petition to revive the death penalty through a public vote. Gov. Ricketts
donated to the campaign, and it prevailed. In November 2016, Nebraska voters
decided to bring back executions.

And still nobody was executed. Finally, in 2018, the state
began preparing to carry out its first ever lethal injection. Carey Dean Moore,
the state’s longest serving death row inmate, had decided he would no longer
fight his appeals. Nebraska officials had struggled to find lethal injection
drugs, and they announced a never-before-used four-drug combination featuring
the opioid fentanyl.

About Matt

An analysis of crime and punishment from the perspective of a former prosecutor and current criminal justice practitioner.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or postions of any county, state or federal agency.